The average Bay Area House member is almost 68, more than a decade older than the average age in a Congress that is among the oldest in U.S. history.

Among the 10 most populous states, only Texas sends an older group of lawmakers to Congress than the Golden State, according to an analysis by this newspaper. (Though we have the nation’s oldest serving governor — take that, Texas!) Even Florida, with all those retirees, has younger blood on Capitol Hill.

With Democrats dominating the landscape, California’s decidedly blue politics will likely offer little suspense in the 2012 presidential and Congressional races, but the color that may distinguish the campaign trail is gray.

At 80, Rep. Pete Stark is seeking a 21st term but faces a rare primary battle with a fellow Democrat: a Dublin councilman talking about fresh blood and new ideas, who was born eight years after voters first sent Stark to Washington. At age 60, Rep. Jerry McNerney is the baby of the Bay Area delegation. “That blows my mind,” the Pleasanton Democrat says. “My hair is growing back in now.” His GOP challenger won’t even turn 25, the minimum age for House members, until May, but is a long shot to win. And if Sen. Dianne Feinstein wins another term in 2012, she would be 85 when it’s time to run again.

How we grew gray

So how did California become a place where politicians are more likely to collect Social Security than Twitter followers?

For one, despite the fault lines running through the state, we’re politically stable, said Thad Kousser, a UC San Diego associate professor who’s an expert in California politics and legislative elections. The state’s political map ﻿has been divided into mostly safe districts for incumbents, Democrats and Republicans alike, and up-and-comers are forced to wait their turns instead of challenging party icons as out of touch.

“We haven’t seen any big shifts in voter sentiment since 1994 — there wasn’t the swing to the left that we saw nationwide in 2006, and there wasn’t the swing to the right that we saw nationwide in 2010,” he said. “The rest of the nation has seen political turmoil and California just hasn’t.”

Take Florida, for example, where more than three quarters of the delegation has been elected in or since 2000; California has seen only 45 percent turnover in that time.

Forty-two percent of the state’s likely voters are 55 or older, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, even though this age group is only 20 percent of the adult population. Meanwhile, young adults ages 18 to 34 make up only 19 percent of likely voters but 33 percent of the adult population.

And California’s younger population is disproportionately Latino, including many recent immigrants, who tend to be less politically active, said Morris Fiorina, a Stanford professor, Hoover Institution senior fellow and voter-behavior expert. That same demographic makeup could explain why Texas also has an older congressional delegation.

Does it matter?

But there’s a real gray area for Republicans trying to take advantage of the generation gap between most Californians and the state’s aging Democratic leaders: Does a politician’s age really matter?

“We don’t think of these people as old,” Kousser said. “None of these people seem like they’re commuting from a nursing home to Capitol Hill. To make age part of a campaign, you have to show that the older person is out of touch or falling asleep on the House floor, and we haven’t seen that.”

Veteran Democratic campaign consultant Dan Newman — whose firm helped Jerry Brown, now 73, and Barbara Boxer, now 71, win in 2010 — said there’s an art to making older lawmakers seem more youthful in a state where the median age is 35.2 (the Census Bureau does not calculate an average). Brown famously showed up on jogging trails during his campaign for governor and even performed 10 pull-ups in front of a reporter.

“The basics involve gently leaking tales of energetic athletic pursuits along with stories of able mind and sharp memory,” Newman said. “The more subtle stuff involves turning age and experience into an advantage — whether it’s Reagan’s clever debate line or showcasing knowledge, wisdom and perspective to create a favorable contrast.” It’s also key not to overcompensate — no one wants to see an 80-year-old tweeting that he’s ROFLMAO, Newman added.

At 66, Rep. George Miller busily tweets, Facebooks and YouTubes from his perch as co-chairman of the House Democratic Policy Committee and as the Education and the Workforce Committee’s ranking Democrat. He was first elected in 1974 — at 29 — but still finds a way to channel his inner freshman.

“My test for myself has always been about energy and enthusiasm,” he said. “I can’t wait to get up in the morning and go to work.”

For some, though, it might be an old-dogs, new-tricks scenario. Feinstein, 78, who declined to be interviewed for this story, has 481 Twitter followers but has never tweeted a thing. Her Republican challenger, Elizabeth Emken, 48, of Danville, has 583 Twitter followers and tweets regularly; she launched her campaign in November citing “Feinstein’s 35-year career as a professional politician” and the need “for new leadership,” but made no direct mention of her age.

Since first winning a House seat in 1992, Rep. Anna Eshoo, 69, has invited high school students to serve on her Student Advisory Boards to research issues and offer ideas on bills. For Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, it’s a way both to engage and nurture future leaders.

Yet Eshoo — the oldest entry in The Hill’s 2010 survey of Capitol Hill’s 50 most beautiful people — said it takes know-how to put youthful input into action. “I don’t think I would be able to make the decisions and navigate what I have to do without having the weight of that experience, and you gather that with the years that you live.”

McNerney said he’s not surprised the Bay Area chooses older representatives, and he doesn’t feel he’s having a May-December romance with those who elect him.

“People in the Bay Area understand that experience matters, not only experience in Washington but experience in raising a family, being out of work for a while, having to pay the mortgage and health insurance,” McNerney said. “They tell me stories I can relate to because I’ve been there with those issues, and I think that matters a lot to people.”

A former wind-energy entrepreneur and consultant, he said he’s at ease discussing new technologies with younger constituents, and even using some technology himself. “I tweet when I get the chance, which isn’t always. … I work with my staff to make sure I don’t do anything stupid.”

Old politicians can’t let go

For all the talk of staying connected to constituents through social media, Joe Sanchis of Belmont sees a bigger problem with the graying of California’s leaders.

Young people are “the most disenfranchised voting group in America today,” said Sanchis, 32, who heads the California Young Republican Federation. While they are bereft of advocacy groups like seniors have in the AARP, young people have the most at stake, with the highest unemployment rates, wider-than-ever wealth disparities between old and young, and entitlement programs from which many believe they’ll never see a dime, he said.

“Young people are going to have to get out and start voting, they’re going to have to mobilize and start fighting for a seat at the table,” he said. “I’d like to see a ‘youth caucus’ in Congress.”

Congress of California Seniors vice president and executive director Gary Passmore said his senior advocacy organization likes things just fine as they are. He need not worry about connecting with Congress as he might about the term-limited, younger state Legislature, he said; in Sacramento, “we have to explain issues that may be facing their grandparents instead of their peers.”

But to everything, even long-in-the-tooth lawmakers, there is a season.

“Nature takes its course,” Kousser said. “Unless they’re forced out, there are so many legislators who die in office because they just can’t let go, it becomes who they are. … It’s part of what keeps them alive, the importance of the task. When you don’t have term limits, look at Robert Byrd, look at Ted Kennedy. These people die with their boots on.”